Keep your finger on the pulse of Air Pollution API
Posted on 15 Dec 2020
The Air Pollution API can facilitate the urban planning and the abatement of traffic congestion. Our quality data makes the sustainability goals achievable for your business. The Air Pollution API provides current, forecasted and short term history data on the concentration of CO; NO; NO2; O3; SO2; PM2.5; PM10 and NH3 in the air for any location around the World. It is included into all the OpenWeather subscriptions, starting with the freemium plan.
Why should we care about the air pollution?
Air Pollution, a.k.a. “The Invisible Killer” is held responsible for 7 million deaths a year, as reported by WHO (World Health Organisation). The pollutants like ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are linked to cardiovascular diseases and cancer incidents. Poor urban planning and adverse road traffic are considered to be major causes of air pollution in the cities. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel combustion on power plants, and production of steel, cement and chemical are releasing GNG (greenhouse gases) and PM (particulate matters) into the atmosphere somewhere away from our sight. Just to give you an idea, this graph depicts the measurement of CO2 concentration in the air around Hawaii which was initiated in 1958. The observed trend in annual increase of 2 ppm (parts per million) resembles a rising pulse.
Numerous governmental policies are mobilising finances to mitigate the air pollution, by facilitating renewable energy innovations and bringing the smart city concepts into life. This should gradually reduce the GHG’s emission into our atmosphere and create new employment opportunities, delivering social and economic benefits.
Free air pollution data makes the sustainability goals achievable
As a weather data provider, OpenWeather seeks to aid businesses in tackling the sustainability challenges. Our free Air Pollution API provides the AQI (Air Quality Index) directly from SILAM - the atmospheric composition model developed by Finnish Meteorological Institute. We have accumulated all the major air quality parameters such as CO; NO; NO2; O3; SO2; PM2.5; PM10 and NH3 and made them available through a fast and straightforward API. It has the current, historical and forecasted air pollution data for any location across the Globe.
Similar to COVID-19, the Air Pollution is another acute problem that requires substantial research. Being data-scientists ourselves, we would like to keep the weather data free for students and scholars. Additionally, we are always happy to provide you with the necessary support from our responsive team, and our R&D department is always open for cooperation.
How to work with the Air Pollution API?
Working with the Air Pollution API is simple, you only need to specify the location with lat/lon parameters and your API key. Below are the examples of API calls for current, forecasted and historical air pollution data:
http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/air_pollution?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&appid={APIkey} - current;
http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/air_pollution/forecast?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&appid={APIkey} - forecasted;
http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/air_pollution/history?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&start={start}&end={end}&appid={APIkey} - historical.
Please note, that the API call for historical air pollution data also requires start and end time to be specified in UNIX format, with the 27.11.2020 earliest date available.
Air Pollution API returns the overall AQI value and the concentration of malevolent gases and particles in the air such as: CO; NO; NO2; O3; SO2; PM2.5; PM10 and NH3.
Find an alternative route and reduce the air pollution with Road Risk API
If you would like to obtain a full picture on the road traffic for any location - use air pollution data in conjunction with our Road Risk API. This data would perfectly match your machine learning solution and enable you to forecast traffic conditions with a supreme accuracy.
All you need is to register your account with OpenWeather, and manage your subscription and API keys from your account page.
Free for all OpenWeather subscription plans.
